Tallulah Hike steps off a year of wilderness

A guided hike along the Tallulah River in the Southern Nantahala Wilderness will be held on Saturday, Feb. 15, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of passage of the Wilderness Act.

It is being led by the Nantahala Hiking Club and the Southern Appalachian branch of the Wilderness Society.

The hike is part of a year-long series of outings and programs in honor of the 50th anniversary of the Wilderness Act and organized by the Southern Appalachian branch of The Wilderness Society in partnership with other organizations. Activities will include guided hikes and walks in wilderness areas, events celebrating the connections between wilderness and the arts, trail maintenance volunteer opportunities, celebratory gatherings and more. www.southeastwilderness50.org.

This Must Be the Place

Standing in line at the Old Europe coffee shop in downtown Asheville, I said that to my old friend, Jerica. It was a rainy Sunday evening and we’d just gotten out of a documentary screening (about Tim Leary and Ram Dass) at the Grail Moviehouse. While I was mulling over the cosmic nature and theme of the film and what our place is in the universe (as per usual), I looked over at Jerica and smiled.

Reading Room

Of course, we’re intended to read from cover to cover many books — novels, histories, biographies, and more. It would make little sense to begin Mark Helprin’s novel A Soldier of the Great War on page 340 of its 860 pages. We might open and commence reading Paul Hendrickson’s Hemingway’s Boat, on page 241, but we’d miss some of the…